a circle unbroken
by astarisms
Summary: Natalie and Lucifer are robbed of their happily ever after, but they get a second chance. 3rd place prize for a tumblr giveaway.


Natalie remembered that day in perfect clarity. She remembered it, despite how much she longed to forget it, how hard she tried.

She remembered it, and every single time the shards that remained of her heart splintered all over again.

They said time healed, but it didn't.

Her friends had told her he was bad news. Her family had told her he wasn't any good for her. They'd all warned her that her trusting heart was going to get broken.

But she had loved him, and she knew he loved her. He had taken a step away from his life before her, he had stopped his not-so-legal side dealings in concern for her safety, he had distanced himself from his bad influences.

The bar him and his best friend had opened up together had taken off, and he was getting his life back together, the right way, for her.

She had never been happier than she was with him, despite how rocky their meeting had been, despite his background, despite the misgivings from the people who loved her. They had overcome all of it and she had thought them invincible.

And in the three blissful years of their romantic relationship, it had seemed like they were.

Until she'd gotten a knock on the door, and had opened it to the police.

She had been taken in for questioning. Questions about his business, the people he used to hang out with, the things he used to do, leaving Natalie reeling in confusion. She'd refused to answer their questions, demanding to know where he was, what they'd done with him.

The two officers sitting across from her had exchanged looks. Then, carefully, one had leaned over.

It had felt like ice water poured over her head. It had felt like a vice twisted around her heart. It had felt like a hand gripping her lungs and pulling all the air from them.

 _Dead. Homicide. Murder._

The words rang in her head, filling her ears until it was all she could think, all she could hear.

His past had come back to haunt him, as he'd worried it would. His past had come back to kill him. She felt sick.

One of the officers had gotten up and left the room, returning a minute later with a small bag, though she'd hardly noticed, denial rushing strong through her veins, her thoughts going a mile a minute. They were lying, they had I.D.'d him wrong, they were mistaken.

They had to be.

The officer with the bag dumped the contents out, then pushed it gently towards her. Found in his pocket, they had said, though the words hardly registered as her eyes fell on the small black velvet box.

Numb with shock, she reached out with shaking fingers, opening the lid. Almost as soon as she set eyes on the beautiful ring within, tears flooded her eyes. She moaned no, low and agonized, and knocked the ring, box and all, off of the table, rushing from the room before she lost it in front of them.

Everyone had been right. She should have listened to them when they told her she would get her heart broken.

Time only made you better at hiding how broken you really were.

In 54 years, Natalie had never taken that ring off. She had never found anyone else, no one who could make her feel like he had.

The hole in her heart had never healed.

When Natalie had found herself in Heaven, once again young and able bodied, it was with a hesitant kind of hope. She wasn't sure if Lucifer would be here, but she had prayed every night for as long as she had lived.

And when she finally — finally — found him, tall and scarred and beautiful, she wept.

She ran into his arms, which he opened wide for her. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and cried, clutching at him as if she was afraid she'd lose him again.

He bowed his head to rest against the side of hers, holding back tears of his own. Oh, he'd missed her. He'd spent half of the years mourning the loss of what they could have had, the other half anticipating her arrival and hoping, selfishly, that she would want him now.

He confessed his worry that she might have found someone else into the length of her hair, the simultaneous desire for her to both find happiness without him and love him still. She only shook her head and sniffled, reaching up to cup his face tenderly in her hands and assure him that he was the only one, that she would love him until the end of time.

He took her hands and pulled back to observe the cool metal on her finger that he'd felt against his skin with surprise. She told him about the officer who had given it to her and about how she hadn't taken it off since his funeral, dissolving into tears again.

She watched with blurry vision as he slipped it off her finger, and after turning it over in his hands, slipped to one knee before her.

He had never been much of one to spill his emotions, so his proposal was short but sincere, and everything he didn't say she could read in the gold of his eyes.

Her body was racked with sobs and she nodded forcefully, unable to get the words out, choked with emotion. He smiled and it was radiant. It stole her breath and weakened her knees until she was sinking down in front of him. He took her hand, pressing his lips to each finger before sliding the ring back where it belonged, and Natalie threw her arms around him.

He kissed her tearfully, and it was bittersweet — mourning the loss of the life they could have had together and celebrating the life they could share for the rest of forever.


End file.
